Cape Town, South Africa, 11 November 2024 - Prince Rahim Aga Khan and an AKDN delegation were in Cape Town this month to attend Earthshot Week and the 2024 Earthshot Prize Awards. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” challenge in 1962 to land a man on the moon within a decade, The Earthshot Prize was launched by His Royal Highness Prince William in 2020 to search for and scale the most innovative solutions to the world’s greatest environmental challenges.

Earthshot Week convenes leading innovators, Earthshot alumni, partners, investors and philanthropists for inspiring conversations and action on catalysing solutions to protect and restore our planet.

The week culminated in the annual Awards Ceremony, which celebrated the work of this year’s 15 finalists. Five winners were each awarded £1 million to scale their solutions.

The five winners:

• Fix Our Climate: Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems
• Revive Our Oceans: High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People
• Build a Waste-Free World: Keep IT Cool
• Protect and Restore Nature: Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative
• Clean Our Air: Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO)

Earthshot Week, and the Earthshot Awards, are a celebration of the solutions the Prize has found across the continent of Africa, and a call to speed African-created solutions to scale, in Africa, and across the world.

AKDN is proud to be a global alliance founding partner of the Prize. AKDN agencies have worked with finalists and winners of the Prize including: SOLShare (2021 finalist) who will be solarising part of the new Aga Khan Academy in Dhaka; and Kheyti (2022 winner) who have worked with the Aga Khan Foundation to establish 40 “greenhouse-in-a-box units” for commercial vegetable farming in Uttar Pradesh. Additionally, discussions with several other finalists and winners are underway.

While in Cape Town, Prince Rahim also met with HRH Prince William to discuss the ongoing partnership between The Earthshot Prize and AKDN; the engagement between AKDN and Earthshot Prize finalists and winners; AKDN’s own net zero commitment and how this is being enacted; and the progress of the Earthshot’s “Launchpad” initiative, which marries promising solutions with investors.